Inside the Block
We're shining a spotlight on the vibrant businesses and and unique history of the Warehouse Block in Lexington, Kentucky! Every first and third Sunday of the month we're serving up a fun blend of inspiring, behind-the-scenes stories of the Bluegrass region's most dynamic district!
Inside the Block
Blue Door Smokehouse with Jeff Newman!
Behind the bright blue door that gives Blue Door Smokehouse its name is a story of culinary passion and community connection. Owner Jeff Newman never planned to open a barbecue joint—he originally wanted an upscale sandwich concept but pivoted when constraints made that impossible. Drawing on his culinary school background and smoking techniques from restaurants across Lexington, New York, and Atlanta, he created a barbecue destination that's thrived for over 11 years.
Their Texas-style brisket—seasoned with salt and pepper, smoked overnight with oak—has become legendary in Lexington's Warehouse Block. While many restaurants struggled during COVID, Blue Door transformed into a "carryout command center" and weathered the storm. Newman deliberately keeps prices accessible because he values long-term customer relationships over maximizing profits.
What sets Blue Door apart is Newman's culture of community. From the open kitchen window to his hiring philosophy that prioritizes personality over experience, he's built "the best team in town." This creates a smooth experience where construction workers and executives sit side by side enjoying high-quality food. The story reveals how passion, adaptability, and community focus create something special—and their legendary brisket is worth the visit.
put that in your new spot and put some fish up and whatever.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, nice, yeah, yeah. That's great because it's funny walking into a place where you know it's barbecue and you're not selling fish yeah, no, yeah, but there's, you know it, it's Harrington and there's fish up there. I always wondered like the connection for sure, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very cool. Good when you are Okay. Cool. We are back with the Inside the Block podcast and I'm here with Jeff Newman, owner of Blue Door. I'm so excited about this episode because, I mean, blue Door Smokehouse has kind of a cult following here in the warehouse block, and for good reason. So it's exciting to get to sit down and talk to you and find out like the story behind.
Speaker 1:Blue Door.
Speaker 2:So when did you start?
Speaker 1:Blue Door Started Blue Door in 2014. And I originally had a partner but I'm solo now and so we had partnership at our original location, which was just up the street, and in between that transition we parted ways, and so I was able to open this new spot alone and just really love it down here in the warehouse block.
Speaker 2:I remember vividly when you were in the old location because you went through COVID during that time and you had to completely change everything, because the space, your old space, isn't, it's a house. It has to be a former house, right, maybe at one point in time. Like a shack on Walton yeah Over. The years.
Speaker 1:People would come in. They would say I remember when this was an antique store, I remember when this was a shoe store, I remember when this was this.
Speaker 2:But they always said it was like a business of some sort.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay, this was this, but they always said it was like a business of some sort. Yeah, and um and it, you know it may have been a residence like originally, Um, but just, there were so many different businesses on that corner over time and um, you know, we were happy to be in there. And um, you know, the one that always stands out to me was Aurora pools and spas, a local like pool business, because that's Aurora Avenue, yeah, you know that intersects with Walton there. So, um, you know just a lot, of, a lot of business history there.
Speaker 2:Definitely so. When you, when COVID, hit, what were the I mean, what were the major challenges? How do you have to change your business model? I mean, you even revolutionized, like the space itself. I remember this, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:We changed it. We called it like the carryout command center, um, and because, you know, mandated that we couldn't have any customers inside the building and um, it was a little easier for us than a lot of businesses. Uh, you know something like uh, you know, like our neighbor on on national appings, they don't do probably a ton of carryout, whereas we already did a lot of carryout, so it was a little easier for us to transition to carryout only. It was basically how we were set up anyways, and so we just had to make a few modifications.
Speaker 1:Of course, we did have a decline in business, like everybody did, and one of the main reasons is because people weren't allowed to get together. So your graduation parties, your weddings, your birthdays, your tailgates and things like that, that's what we really missed out on. But as far as just people coming in and buying food, that really didn't slow down too much, and I think that was because we had such a good system. We never had and we never since then implemented, you know, stuff like Uber, eats and DoorDash, but we did during that time and started online ordering, which we've kept up with that as well, but it just was really easy and we just got a couple of new tablets so we could do car side and just had a really good system. It wasn't perfect all the time, but it worked well for us and got us through the COVID times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I felt like it was, dare I say, like booming, because there were times that I would go, and even during COVID or like as we were sort of like easing out of that, and it was wildly crowded. It was like people were craving barbecue in COVID.
Speaker 1:Well, one thing that happened during that period and my family was in the same boat is we were like we have to support these local businesses Definitely. And I will say, and I don't know the specifics of all these other businesses, but we had a loss of business during that time, but it wasn't as severe as what you would read on the news. The know the average business was losing 40 or 50% or whatever the numbers were. Um, we weren't quite at that level because we had a good system in place and, um, our food is also really good for carryout. It's like we don't do anything fried, so you don't have to worry about stuff getting soggy and things like that, and it just kind of holds well and it reheats well.
Speaker 1:So, and we're very, we were very convenient on that corner. So you pull in, you call us and say you know, I'm here to pick my order up and we run it out to you, pay car side and you're on your way. So, in everything that we've done has always been very intentional and we make it intentionally easy on ourselves and our customers. That's one thing that I've always had in my head is like you know, sometimes you have a dining experience is like a little clunky, or your to-go experience is a little clunky and we want ours to be nice and smooth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely On yourselves too. Yeah, that makes total sense.
Speaker 1:It's almost more for us than it is for the customer. If it's easier on us, it's going to be easier on the customer, and then that gives us the opportunity to grow and do more. And in that particular instance it's like we could have if we didn't make these changes that we did. We would probably have lost even more business, but we set it up in such a way where it was nice and smooth and people were able to get in and out, and then they started to know that. So we started seeing the same people. We have a lot of repeat customers.
Speaker 2:We have a lot of weekly guys.
Speaker 1:They were like two and three times a week at that point in time. Because our prices we've always tried to keep them low, so we're even competitive with some of the fast food prices and, um, and for that reason it's like you knew you could come in and it'd be quicker than going to subway or you know McDonald's or something like that and fighting the drive-through line. So, um, you know, we just you have to adapt in the restaurant industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's much appreciated too, because, um, um, I don't want to like over generalize barbecue, but I often feel like sometimes it can get really expensive like there's some.
Speaker 1:There's some places in and around town, or even just like when you travel, where it's like dang, like I'm paying an extraordinary amount for like a plate you know, and so like I've always really appreciated that you guys have kept it competitive yeah, one of the things, um, and you know, and I, I've actually been criticized for this um over the years, but I don't really care about that criticism because, um, I work there every day. I mean, you know, I I take my days off, I have my vacation time, that kind of stuff, but I like to be there as an active owner and, um, you know, like I talked about intentionally setting things up a certain way, I've got us set up in a way that it's very, very smooth, our work day, our work week. It's very efficient and because of that I've got a fewer number of employees than most places that do the kind of business we do far fewer employees and we're just able to, like I said, be efficient and that helps keep the cost down. We work well with our suppliers on getting our costs down and we just try to pass that on. I know I could probably squeeze a few extra dollars here and there out of everything that I do, but that's not as important to me as, like, the longevity of our business and saying, you know, I can make X dollars now or I can make X plus 10, you know later, it, it, it. It doesn't work like that for me.
Speaker 1:I'm here for the long run and I don't want to squeeze everything out and people feel like we're, you know, nickel and diming all of our customers and we keep our prices where they need to be for us, but the cost of raw materials is getting more expensive. So we went a very long time without raising our prices and a lot of my friends that own and manage restaurants would come in and say I don't know how in the world you've got it this cheap. And I would say I'm still profitable. I'm still I'm happy with what we're doing, and but it did come a point in time where we had to start. You know looking at raising some prices and we've raised.
Speaker 1:We've had multiple raises over the years We've been in business a little over 11 years, um, so of course, we've had to raise some prices, but we've always tried to keep them as competitive as possible, um, because we love seeing those same people over and over again being a part of people's. You know celebrations and parties and different events, um, and we've got people that say, yeah, you did our daughter's wedding and you know 2019, we did our second daughter's wedding this year, you're doing their college graduations and things like that.
Speaker 1:So special yeah so we know we've got them for a long period of time. Yeah, as a regular customer.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what got you into barbecue to begin with?
Speaker 1:It was really just a hobby.
Speaker 2:You'd smoke your own stuff at home.
Speaker 1:Well, mostly for other restaurants. I've always been in the restaurant industry.
Speaker 2:Here in Lexington.
Speaker 1:Mostly here in Lexington. I went to culinary school in New York and came back to Lexington, worked a while in Atlanta and just kind of always incorporating smoking. And originally it would be simple stuff like a little smoked onions for topping for a steak or smoked tomato for a little pasta sauce or something like that. And then it started to get to be bigger cuts of meat and things like that. And when we went to our old location we actually had plans on a different concept. It was a barbecue restaurant before we bought it, and so we were just going to take all that equipment and sell it and then do this new concept. But there was some um constraints with like, uh, ceiling height to put in like exhaust hoods and just space really that.
Speaker 2:What was the concept going to?
Speaker 1:be. Uh, it was going to be like ups, like cool sandwiches, Um so we were going to bake our own bread, and do you?
Speaker 2:know, deli?
Speaker 1:almost no, not really a deli? Um. To be honest. It was kind of copying a place in charleston called butcher and b? Um really cool spot. They've changed their concept up a little bit, but it was originally uh sandwiches like uh, thanks, you know, like a general so's chicken sandwich or you know, just kind of some cool off the beaten path, interesting type stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah um, and it just wasn't gonna work. So we really said you know, we have all this equipment for barbecue, we know how to do it. Now we just had to figure out how to scale it up to to a restaurant. You know quantities, um, and that's the thing about having like the culinary background, like I know how to cook, just in general.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can pivot, we can solve problems, and um, and that I'll I'll come back to solving problems like a ton of times, because that's just part of the industry is like being quick to solve problems, quick on your feet, quick to pivot, and um. So we said we can definitely do this, it's not a problem at all. We know how to cook meat, we know how to, you know, tell when something's right, something's wrong when it comes to cooking. So we just went for it in that respect and um, and, and it turned out good for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when you'd first started in 2014, was that were there and that was way pre-COVID. Were there any challenges in that spot you doing barbecue there or was it like immediately pretty successful?
Speaker 1:It was immediately pretty successful. There were a lot of challenges that the customer probably didn't see. It was a very, very small facility just in general. So I tell this story a lot.
Speaker 1:If you remember the old spot, there was a refrigerator that was kind of covered in stickers and we didn't have that when we first opened and we started getting pretty busy pretty quickly and I'm looking at like what we had just ordered from our supplier and I'm like we don't have space for all this meat that we just like it was our biggest order yet. And so I went to a restaurant supply store in town and just went down. We didn't have much money, we had just opened and I'm just going to like I can afford that, and I'm like I need this, but I need it delivered today. And they're like, oh, we don't do deliveries until. And I was like, all right, see, I'm going to go to the other spot.
Speaker 1:And so they stopped me and they said, well, hold on. What's going on? And I told him and I said Look, I just have all this meat coming in. I don't even have anywhere to put it. Yeah, so you know, that was just within like our fourth or fifth week of being in business there, and so there was just constantly like we need a new, we need more shelving for dry storage, we need more refrigeration, we need a freezer, we need these kinds of things, and it was very difficult for us on the uh, you know, behind the scenes the customer probably didn't see that as much because, um, you just never want people to realize the analogy of a duck.
Speaker 2:You know they're like going crazy under the water.
Speaker 1:Well, when I worked for Ritz Carlton, um, one of the uh, one of the mottos that they had, and sometimes they would even say it above the door you'd be behind the scenes and you'd be going into a public facing area and the door above that would say smile, you're on camera. And it was kind of like this idea, like you got to leave whatever you've got in the back of the house, and when you're in the front of the house, people don't want to see your frustration or your issues or your troubles.
Speaker 2:That's gotta be so hard.
Speaker 1:sometimes, though, it's very hard, but you want to make sure that their experience is top notch, and um and that's what hospitality industry is all about is just is that customer experience?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Golly, I mean especially. I mean I, I used to work in restaurants too. That was really tough, because you're working together as a team and you're constantly performative in front of other people. That's always been a rough moment.
Speaker 1:You seem to have a really good team, though I have the best team of every restaurant in the entire city. I tell people that all the time. Shout out to all my guys down there that are working while I tell people that all the time. Um, so you know, shout out to all my guys that are working while I'm up here doing a podcast. Um, and I do want to correct myself, I just said smile, you're on camera. It's smile, you're on stage.
Speaker 1:So anybody that worked for Ritz Carlton that's listening to this. I'm sorry I messed it up the first time, um, but uh, you know, yes, I have the best team, best crew of people and I think what it is is um, I hire almost more on like personality and how I get along with people in an interview than I do actual skill. I mean my newest guy most restaurants would never have hired this guy for the position that he's in. I mean my newest guy most restaurants would never have hired this guy for the position that he's in. I mean he does a lot of prep work and washes dishes and stuff, but like, just letting him come on into that prep position and stuff, um, a lot of places wouldn't have hired him for that but immediately got along with him well and just kind of could tell that he was going to be, you know, fun to be around, work hard, listen to direction and uh, and he's worked out great you know yeah.
Speaker 1:And he wears funny hats at work too, so it's always entertaining, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you must have a real knack for being a good judge of character.
Speaker 1:You know, I mean, maybe I guess I don't know Um, you know, in the restaurant industry and, I'm sure, a lot of other industries, you wish that you had 50 amazing people to choose from, and that's just not always the case, especially in a town like Lexington. Um, I want, I want good quality people that you know are willing to work the hours, and we, you know, we work full-time hours. They usually get a few hours of overtime and, um, I've got it set up to where, you know, everybody gets like an extra day off every fourth week and things like you know little things like that, good little incentives. Um, but I just want people that are like there to be part of the team as well. Um, and that's that's probably the most important, because it is a team, we're next to each other, elbow to elbow, all day long.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we're in the trenches. It can be, you know, it can be kind of a maddening experience or can be, you know, a lot of stuff going on at one time, and sometimes someone is in the weeds, like we say in the industry, and you got to help them get out of the weeds, and then you're going to be in the weeds at some point in time, they're going to help you get out and um. So I think that's what I like the most about my crew is that we all, we're all very friendly with each other. A lot of them knew each other outside of of work already, and that's how we got you know. Some of the people was like, hey, I know this guy, and then you know, a year later you need to replace somebody and hey, I know a guy. And so it just kind of brought on some friends, people that were already friends, um, which is can be, you know, can be an issue sometimes when people already have relationships.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um but it it hasn't been that way, cause they're like clicky together or what. Well, they can be clicky or they can take, you know, if someone gets mad at someone outside of work because they're, you know, hanging out or doing whatever.
Speaker 2:And then they bring it into work, and then they bring it into work.
Speaker 1:But I don't have to deal with any of that stuff. My guys are all professional and you know we all like to have fun while we're at work and we just like that environment.
Speaker 1:And so it's like sometimes you're in a bad mood, you know you could have had something majorly horrible happened in your life and you can still come in. And there are days you can kind of keep to yourself and be quiet and everybody kind of leaves you alone. And then there are days where we're just we're talking and joking and you know cutting up so much that it's like, oh wait, hey guys, we got to like get moving, you know.
Speaker 1:So, but it's a good environment and, like I said, best crew in town for sure, I think that comes across really clearly, like as a customer as a repeat customer myself, like every time I go in like it.
Speaker 2:Just I don't know. There's sometimes there's vibes of certain establishments where you can tell they either don't know each other and maybe they don't like each other or whatever, but there it's like very clear that you're a full blown team, you know in every good sense of that word.
Speaker 2:And a lot of. I mean you're always there, which I always think is like really cool because, like oftentimes, people that are ahead of a business or, you know, like the CEO of sorts, like they're not as hands-on I mean you are and I always like when I walk in. You're there doing whatever. It is like right behind the window that customers can like you're doing some brisket. You're cutting brisket, okay see we need more of a look at that. I wish like we could see you like actually well, the we.
Speaker 1:You know our old spot. We had the little doorway into the kitchen area and you could kind of peek out and see like a third of the dining room. And so this new spot. I was like I want a big window, I want to see everything and I want I always felt like, you know, our friends could come in and be like hey, what's up, dude, and you could wave at them and stuff.
Speaker 1:And I wanted to keep that connection between, like, the back of the house and the front of the house. Um, we do things a little bit differently than most restaurants. I mean, our setup's a little bit different. So there's a lot of communication between employees in the front of the house and the back of the house and I just like to see people come in and, um, you know, wave at my friends and my family and whoever, and, um, I like to see people's reactions when they eat and and I like for them to be able to look back in the kitchen and say, oh, this was great, thank you all very much, and you know, just kind of have that connection.
Speaker 2:Totally. Not to compare you to Waffle House, but I like. Growing up as a kid I loved the connection between like you're in the kitchen and you get to see how everybody like you know the workers react to you. I mean like it feels like a communal aspect and like I think you've done a really nice job of that too. I love Waffle House. It's like one of my favorite places. I love Waffle.
Speaker 1:House. Mark and Nathan, if you're listening, everyone loves Waffle House except you two. Those are a couple of my friends, but anyways, yeah, I love that aspect yeah of it too, and I don't, maybe you know, subconsciously you know that a little bit of that, yeah, because I mean we love waffle house. I mean I've got pictures of my kids from babies wearing the little waffle house oh, love it.
Speaker 2:I take mine all the time. Yeah, yeah, it's just, it's so special. Yeah, I don't, and I actually I don't think I trust anybody who doesn't like waffle house. You'll get a hater here and there yeah. Yeah, like whoever those two people you just met, yeah.
Speaker 1:Haters. They're phenomenal guys, but they're just wrong about.
Speaker 2:Waffle House. They have a wrong opinion.
Speaker 1:I did tell them that I was going to take them out and I'm just going to order for them. So, and I still haven't done that yet.
Speaker 1:Sometimes they need like Okay, where did the name blue door come from? Um, so we were looking for um name ideas and didn't want to do anything. That was like you know, jj's barbecue or you know whatever. Wanted like um, a name that, okay, maybe one day we franchise around the world and it could just be a standard name. We wouldn't have to change it, you know, or whatever. Um and I was working on another restaurant concept. Uh, before blue door, that was called the green bugle. That was going to be like an English style pub. Um, like really, really good food and nice, like you know, homey pub atmosphere. Um, and I had this big, like five or six foot long bugle and we were going to paint it green. That was going to be like above the bar and everything. So I and eventually someone sent this is how long ago this was. We used to all send email like those email chains to each other.
Speaker 2:Like. You have to send this to five other people or you're going to have bad luck for 10 years.
Speaker 1:This one wasn't necessarily like that, but it was like this is something that now you would just share on Facebook or Instagram, but back then you would share it via email. But it was the top 10 viewer submitted photos to national geographic of whatever year you know it was. And I was just looking this is somebody, something somebody sent me and I was looking through it and then this picture came up that was a uh, like a seaside town, like a hillside town, maybe in South America or the Mediterranean, I don't really remember but it was all these very colorful homes and whatever. And then right in the middle there was one of the homes had a bright blue door and it just stood out from all and it was a very colorful picture. But nobody else had that color blue. So it stood out and that just clicked immediately and I was like blue door, we can you know, we're the bluegrass state, kentucky, blue bluegrass music gotcha we can paint the door blue and that'll. That'll be it. So that was just immediate.
Speaker 2:It kind of happened like that and was that color blue, like a Kentucky blue in the photo, or was it more of like a?
Speaker 1:it was it was close. Yeah, it was maybe like a little more tropical blue, yeah, um, but and since I had that green bugle like kind of the color and then the item you know was kind of, I guess, in my head already, so as soon as I saw that I thought blue door and um, so that that's how we came up with the name I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um that. So did you paint the door blue at the old location? And is the new? This is stupid. I and is the new? This is stupid, I mean is the new location? Okay, yeah, I think I'm always like so hungry and like focused on what I'm about to eat. I don't even see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the old spot. We just painted the door blue and we actually had um plans on having blue doors be like a recurring theme. But we went to the store, we got two samples of paint you know those little tiny sample cans and we painted the door and it was like we were just going to paint sample. You know paint, you know little swatches, so we could see what color we like the best and I was just like this color's fine with me, painted the whole door. That was the end of that sample can and I thought you know, we don't need to overdo these doors, we just have one blue.
Speaker 2:It's not blue doors, smokehouse it's just one door, yeah, so this is the blue door that's it, the blue door.
Speaker 1:So now we have two blue doors. We have one on the main entrance and one on like a side entrance.
Speaker 2:It's like for employees that access of the smokehouse, um, but we're just not gonna go overboard with the doors yeah, yeah, good call, yeah, keep it subtle you know there's some people in town that think that it was a political statement, that because you're blue, and that there's another barbecue space that has like red and their name that it's like this, like back and forth with the bullet and I'm like I don't think that's the case whatsoever, but like everybody's always gonna read, read into everything, right.
Speaker 1:Matter of fact, years ago the owner of red state called me we're, we're friendly and, um, you know, we're all, we're all kind of in this together in the restaurant industry. I don't, I couldn't care less about competition. I actually enjoy it and welcome it, because I would like to be able to say I want people. You know people talk about barbecue. They talk about Kansas city. You know Carolina barbecue, you know Austin, texas, that kind of stuff. It would be great if people were like Lexington, kentucky, one of the best barbecue spots in the world. Um, so, but anyway. So him and I, we had both been approached by some organization to do a political thing.
Speaker 2:Oh, like lean into it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they said well, you're blue and he's red. So what if we did like a barbecue cook-off kind of thing and people voted and it kind of like mimicked like the election or whatever?
Speaker 2:was the.
Speaker 1:You know the reason for the event, and I said no, thank you, Um. And then so the owner of red state called and he said, hey, did they call you? And I said yeah, and he said, well, I told him no and I said yeah, me too, you know, and what's funny is that, um, you know a lot of local businesses and you know small businesses. They bring their personal stuff, you know their personal beliefs and their politics into their business and that's totally cool. That's 100%. You know their prerogative to do.
Speaker 1:Me personally, I would never do that Just because, like, we're just eating lunch together you know, um, and during the time, like I don't want to speak for the guy but the owner of red state, he named that and he said in some older interviews because red states were known to have the best barbecue and at a certain time in our you know political history, we we weren't so like divided and so it was kind of like in our you know political history, we, we weren't so like divided and so it was kind of like you could say, you know, I, like I said I don't want to speak for him, but I think he might be more blue than red Um and uh and I, but he just it was okay for him to just say like red state. And of course some people are going to say I don't like it because of that or whatever, but I think it was just a statement of provenance. Like red states are known to have great barbecue, for Blue Door it had nothing to do with politics whatsoever?
Speaker 2:I didn't think about that.
Speaker 1:But I don't like to bring any personal beliefs or anything into my workspace, because we're just people eating lunch.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we can sit there and have lunch and not have to have some kind of political disagreement. At all times. We're kind of inundated with that, with the news and social media. And I had a friend that worked with me at Boone Tavern I was the chef at Boone Tavern and Berea for a long time and she went to work in DC and she does a lot of marketing and stuff. And when I was going to open she contacted me and said I'd love to help you with marketing and this, that and the other. And I said okay, sure, yeah, what? I don't know much about that stuff. So I was ready to take her advice. And she said your target audience? And I said I don't know everybody that lives in lexington, yeah, and she was like, no, no business, has everybody as their target audience. And I'm like, well, I'm gonna break the mold on that because you know we're we're gonna be inexpensive, you know, in comparison to some other places. You know it's gonna be a quick lunch service great product yeah, you know, and so she might be right.
Speaker 1:It may not be the target of everybody.
Speaker 2:It's pretty popular, but when?
Speaker 1:you're sitting when you're having lunch and you look around and you see construction guys with their dirty boots on and then you know we see, oh hey, this guy um is ceo of, you know g and j pe, you know whatever I mean. You just see this big demographic of people and maybe that one guy he doesn't have much money that comes in, but this is like his weekly treat, you know and maybe these other guys they could spend thousands a day on going out if they wanted to, but they can also just sit next to each other at blue Door and enjoy the same food. It's just food and that's all we want to do is just serve good quality food to people and have them enjoy it.
Speaker 2:I love that. That's great. So, speaking of all the different, you'd said something earlier that really interested me. I'd forgotten. Of course, there's so many different styles to barbecue. So, there's Carolina, kansas City, of course, texas, and I'm from Oklahoma and. Texas. So there's. You said Carolina, kansas City, of course Texas, and I'm from Oklahoma and Texas. So, like I know that there's some different, would you consider what you do to be in the vein of some of those? Are you breaking the mold with that? Like, what is Lexington barbecue and what are you doing?
Speaker 1:well, you know, we don't have Lexington, like doesn't have a barbecue identity necessarily, um, so we really kind of have pulled just from different areas and, you know, being culinary background, just want it to taste good Really.
Speaker 1:Um now I will say like our, our, our brisket is definitely Texas style, um, which really just means that it's a whole brisket, so it's not cut into the two muscle groups, it's the whole thing. I just seasoned with salt and pepper and smoked with Oakwood and that's really kind of what makes it Texas barbecue. Um and then, but the other meats are just kind of what, what I wanted to do, you know just the flavor that I wanted, um, and then we have a few different sauces if you want to add that, and um, just kind of keep it simple. But most people will say that we're Texas style, and one of the reasons that people say that is because, like I said, the previous tenant of our old location was a barbecue restaurant and he had some graphics up on the window and we left him up there just because it had the phone number and stuff and we took anything down with their logo.
Speaker 1:But we kept a couple of things up, and one left them up there just because it had the phone number and stuff and we took anything down with their logo, but we kept a couple things up and one of them said Texas barbecue. And so I think that's one of the reasons and really the only reason we did that is because we just couldn't afford to put all these new window graphics up at that time. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:And over time. We just said I don't know, we'll just leave it there. It doesn't say anybody else's business on it, and it was like protected from the sun. Um and so that's you know. So we don't. We don't have never really claimed to be Texas barbecue I mean, definitely like Austin, texas makes the best brisket you know ever and so we just wanted to do what they do, which is salt, pepper Oak smoke, pepper oak smoke, and that's really this. Keep it as simple as you can yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:What's the most popular like when your typical person coming in? Is there one thing that's more popular than another? That?
Speaker 1:people get yeah, brisket's the most popular hands down like overwhelmingly yeah hands down, um so by like, by sales, uh, brisket. I just looked at this yesterday Brisket pound is our number one selling item. Brisket plate is the number two selling item. Two, meat combo is number three selling item and that almost always has brisket on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what about the second meat? Pulled pork, pulled pork, yeah, yeah yeah, Well, I think you do great sausage too Well thank you, yeah, so where does all the meat come from?
Speaker 1:Uh, it just comes from like a commodity supplier us foods, um, you know, we'd love to use like a higher end product, um, but I think there's that's one of the reasons why we can have our prices a little bit lower. Um, we do get a little bit different product from US because we do go through so much meat. They have to make sure they have that available for us. Yeah, but it's just a pretty standard product, just the same thing you could buy at the grocery store or Costco or whatever, and it's just kind of how you treat it. After that, People ask us oftentimes about could you, you know, could you use local meat? And really can't. I mean, cost-wise it's that's prohibitive. Um, so you'd be paying, you know, $25 brisket sandwich, um you know, versus you know seven or eight dollars.
Speaker 2:I mean, you'd think that you're cutting out a middleman of some sort.
Speaker 1:Well, it's just, it's Well, it's expensive to raise animals, so that smaller scale of a local farm costs them more money. In turn, it costs them more money to do the of like size and, you know, consistency of product. The biggest issue is that we go through, you know, I mean sometimes, I don't know 70, 100 briskets a week or you know whatever, I mean more than that. Oftentimes, um, that means like 50 cows have to give their lives because there's two briskets per cow. So if we tell this local farmer like we would love to buy your brisket, but you have to slaughter at least 50 cows a week just for us and we're not buying any of the other products that come off that cow, so we don't need the steaks, we don't need the ground beef, we don't need the roasts and things like that yeah, it might be wasteful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, or complicated well, that would just mean that they would just have, every week they would have, 700 pounds of ground beef to get rid of. Yeah, and so it's just that local food system isn't, isn't set up.
Speaker 2:I don't think a lot of people know that I don't think that that is like a part of, uh, the normal person's like understanding of food in general, like like the local to you, know local business thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really interesting yeah, I mean, it would be a. It would be a dream of mine to be able to buy enough.
Speaker 2:You know, blue door farm, yeah that'd be great, but then it would be a dream of mine to be able to buy enough. You know, blue Door Farm? Yeah, that would be great.
Speaker 1:But then I would be by the end of the month, I'd have 20,000 pounds of beef to sell to someone else. So, yeah, it would be a big goal of ours to be able to use all local, but it's just, you know, just hasn't materialized over the years?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah. So what is your typical day like? Like, how early do you have to get to blue door to get everything going for? Like the because it's only lunch, right, it's so you have this huge lunch.
Speaker 1:Monday through Thursday is lunch. Friday and Saturday we're open till 8 or whenever we sell out. Yeah, some weekends we're we go all the whole until 8 o'clock with all of our items. Some weekends they can be sold out as like three or four o'clock Just depends, and we smoke a lot of meat. So we've there's been some chatter that we're like artificially, you know, not making that much product so that we kind of create this artificial scarcity.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's like buzz and like yeah, yeah, A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Not true. I'm first and foremost a businessman. I have to have, I have to have a certain amount of income to pay my employees and my rent and all these different things. And, um, I would never create that artificial scarcity. I mean, that's just kind of. I think there are places that do that. You know other businesses that do that. You know I collect records and you know a lot of bands will put out like we have this super exclusive only made a hundred of these records and you know, yeah, you could have made 500 of them, or 10,000.
Speaker 1:You chose to you chose to make a hundred. So there's a lot of hype around this. That's not. You know, that's not what I do. Um, we smoke a ton of meat and what it is you know. Like you said, when do you get started? We get started about 7 PM the day before. And so smoke overnight.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're smoking through the night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's coming off at eight o'clock in the morning, um, and you know, and then that way it's fresh every day. So lunch starts at 11. And if we have orders to do, which we do almost every day of our existence um, someone's called I'm want to do an office lunch, I want to do this or whatever. Um and uh, you know, we had three or four today. We need that meat done before so we can start cutting orders and stuff at nine, 30 or 10 o'clock or whatever, so they can come pick it up at 11. Um, so, yeah, so we it goes overnight. Um crew comes in about eight in the morning and it's just hustle time until we open at 11. And when we open at 11, there are days where it could be a slow start and there are days where there's 15, 20 people outside, and then that just doesn't stop until 1.30 or 2 o'clock and then after that it's a little bit of a trickle.
Speaker 2:Is there any rhyme or reason to why some days are slower than others? Absolutely not. You never know.
Speaker 1:You never know Um the like, the local um visitor and convention bureau. I feel bad. I don't know actually what they call themselves, but that that type of organization here in town they do send out like a monthly or bi-monthly email that says like here's what's going on in town. We've got the high school cheer competition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, big rep arena, it's pulling in 10,000 people.
Speaker 1:We've got this golf tournaments pulling in 3,500 people. So there are times when I do look at that and I think Thursday, friday, saturday of next week should be a little bit extra. Um, weather's going to be nice, school's out. You can try to forecast as well as you want. There will be a random Monday where we will just get crushed and sell out of all this food that would normally, on a Monday, last us all day. We've done by 1.30. And then there are days that you know for sure that you are going to be crushed. Fourth of July was one of them for us recently.
Speaker 2:Oh, that has to be your biggest holiday. Everybody wants barbecue on Fourth of.
Speaker 1:July. That's definitely a big day. The biggest individual days will be UK football game days.
Speaker 2:Okay, of course.
Speaker 1:When the games are later in the evening. So if you have a 1230 game, there's not enough time to pick food up at 11. Um and to get to the stadium to tailgate, but if you have a 7 PM game, there's plenty of time to pick up. So then, those days where you have, you know they some people call them like the Lexington, you know exact or whatever like Keeneland in the afternoon you know, in the morning or in the afternoon, and then a football game at night.
Speaker 1:a day like that, we're going to sell, I mean, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pounds of meat. It's going to go fast. We're going to, you know, get our butts kicked and um, but that's that's how we like it. Though we like to be busy and keep moving. It's those days where you're just kind of like, you know, two people here, five people come in, a few pounds here, a few pounds there. Those days they stretch out. They can be long days, but we like those busy days where we just, you know, move and just sell meat.
Speaker 2:Do you ever get tired of the grind?
Speaker 1:You know this just got brought up the other day there's always going to be like a level of burnout, you know, in a restaurant.
Speaker 2:No pun intended. Well, maybe a little bit.
Speaker 1:Um, but there is. You know, we are very repetitive business, I mean we do the same thing. We. We do little fun features here and there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of work, extra work for us. Um, our, our day is like pretty regimented. Everybody knows exactly what to do. We don't have a lot of items on the menu but we make all of them in bulk. Um, so like it can get to be a grind um at blue door. So we try to break it up with the features here and there, um, here and there. Me personally, I don't really experience that too much. I enjoy. If I was at the old place still I would, because I was getting very. You know there's a lot of anxiety about how small the space was and it was like hard to keep clean and different things like that and the building was kind of starting to fall apart and a lot of repairs happening and things. New Spot is open and airy and inviting and it's a really fun environment and, you know, really good place to work.
Speaker 2:So that was the reason for the move you needed a bigger space, we just needed a bigger space, yeah.
Speaker 1:We needed a bigger and newer space where we could have more refrigeration and more storage and everything. But yeah, there's definitely like a little bit of burnout, um, when you're doing something that repetitive. But I just always, I mean I just enjoy walking through the door, um and uh, and I just it's almost like a game sometimes, like how much meat can we sell this week, you know, and we'll surprise ourselves and you'll think you're not going to have that busy of a weekend. And then all of a sudden, excuse me, wednesday, thursday, comes around and those phone calls start coming in. It's like oh, wow, now with an extra you know a hundred pounds of pork to do this weekend or whatever, um, so it's just you got to kind of find those those little sparks of entertainment, you know, and something that might be kind of boring and doldrum entertainment, you know, and something that might be kind of boring and doldrum, yeah, so that's the best way to do an order with you guys is call so not online.
Speaker 1:You're not doing we do online for stuff like sandwiches and plates, yeah, um. So yeah, you hop online bluedoorsmokehousecom. Um. Follow the link to order online and um it'll. You can download an app to like through square. Makes it a little bit easier if you're going to do it regularly. Um and then that. But that's just for like individual stuff sandwiches and plates and um. But if you want to order bulk, like for a party, just give us a shout okay, yeah, that's really good to know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we don't have anything.
Speaker 1:Like people say, do you have any packages? We don't really. We just we just tailor everybody's menu to what they need. So you got 25. People will tell you how much meat and how many sides and that kind of thing you need, and not everybody needs everything or wants everything. So sometimes I feel like we see packages not all the time, but sometimes they can be like a little bit of wasteful. You know, not everybody needs disposable plasticware and plates, you know, and so we don't include. You know, when you want brisket, you can just get the brisket and the sauce. You want potato salad? Just that. You want all of it? We'll put something together for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, smart, all the cart, yeah, yeah. So tell me about um. You have two kids do they love barbecue. Do they eat it often? Are they sick of it?
Speaker 1:they don't eat it a ton. Yeah, um, they do like it. They're actually coming around to it more. Um, my young one, she's a carnivore. Um so, like her, and I mean she eats as much steak as I do you. You know, I'll grill steaks at home and I'm like I just I'm like where are you putting all this? And that's, she's like I don't want the vegetable, I don't want the potatoes. Um so she, she likes it. You know barbecue is like it's a flavorful thing.
Speaker 1:You know there's a lot of depth of flavor to it. So sometimes for younger people it's not something that they like immediately, but they're coming around to it more and more and to where they're actually asking for it a little bit.
Speaker 2:For you to bring it home. Yeah, or you to make it at home for them.
Speaker 1:No, just like they'll come in to visit.
Speaker 2:Oh, they like to come in.
Speaker 1:yeah, One of them does karate, does martial arts down the street, and so they'll have. You know, she'll have a session like on Saturday morning and then they'll come in for lunch or you know things like that and um. But it used to be kind of hard to feed them when they came in because they didn't really like the side items. Like, we have a little bit of a limited number of side items, um. I love your sides, though I you know, I think we do great.
Speaker 2:I think it's great potato solid.
Speaker 1:Sometimes people criticize that we don't have enough or they don't like it or whatever I'm, I don't know. I've sell more side items than anybody in this town, probably. Um. So people do like them, um, but we don't do Mac and cheese, which is like super popular barbecue side. We don't do French fry. We don't do anything fried Um. So those are two that, like you know, those are the ones that kids like the most. But my kids they like our beans and they like our little side salads with a little homemade smoked tomato ranch, so they're coming around to it.
Speaker 2:Your kids eat salad.
Speaker 1:They love salad yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm wildly impressed.
Speaker 1:My kids are great eaters. They like a little bit of everything I do consider myself lucky, but we started them early early yeah. Just trying all the different things that we try. But what has happened is that now, like when we go out as a family, like we go to sushi, and they're like, oh, I want some tuna sashimi and I want some salmon. So it's like they don't order the $6.99 kids meal anymore.
Speaker 2:So it's a moment, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's all fine and good. Yeah, we like that they're pretty good eaters.
Speaker 2:Sophisticated eaters yeah, that's amazing. So what is life like for you outside of Blue Door? You said you love music. As a Lexingtonian, what are you doing with your off time? Where do you eat if it's not your own stuff?
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I don't eat my own stuff very much. I taste any good chef tastes. I'll tell you when I like my stuff. The best is when I'm outside of work and somebody we know has used us to cater it and it's kind of like I'm removed Okay.
Speaker 1:You could ask anybody that works at Blue Door and probably any barbecue restaurant. I don't smell the smoke at work. It's, you know, I don't. When I eat the food it doesn't taste real smoky to me because we're in that environment all day long. But when I go home and I take a shower and I put fresh clothes on, then we go to a friend's house and I'm like oh, I didn't realize that your uncle picked up Blue Door for this get-together. That's when I really like it, because that's when I can kind of taste it as what the consumer would taste it as yeah, like fresh eyes.
Speaker 1:Like fresh, yeah, and sometimes I'll walk into a place and I'm like I can smell them like Bluedor and like wait, what's their name? Oh, okay, yeah, they picked up seven pounds of this and four pounds of this and I'll know that that's what we're going to have. That's when I like our stuff. The best is when I'm having it as like a normal guest would, at someone's party or something. Life outside of work for me is mostly kids stuff. Our kids are super active. They play soccer, they do gymnastics, martial arts. Summer is swim season.
Speaker 2:So they're on a swim team.
Speaker 1:That's its its own thing um, yeah, so we've got our last meet this week and then our conference um tournament this weekend, um, so that that'll be a good time. So we love that. We love live music. You go to burl a lot, uh, yeah, yeah, not as much as before. Kids, obviously, um, but you know, when good shows come to town we definitely try to do what we can to get there and see some music.
Speaker 1:That's one of the things my wife and I bonded over, you know, early in our relationship was going to see music. Um, I love playing disc golf. Um, just hanging out with friends and family, and most of my family lives here. My wife's family lives in Indiana so we don't see them as much. Um, you know, one of my sisters has a pool so we go over there and the kids love to be in the water and just hang out. We do go out to eat quite a bit. We like simple stuff and we like, you know, kind of international stuff. So we love Everest, like we love the Nepalian indian I haven't been yet, but I've heard it's incredible.
Speaker 2:Very good.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right on my list and they're so so, so nice there yeah um super, super nice group of people, so it's nepalese food uh-huh okay, yeah, so a lot, a lot of crossover with indian food, but there is some like specific nepalese stuff I love indian so much yeah, we do too, um, we love thai food we love vietnamese food.
Speaker 2:What's your favorite thai place in?
Speaker 1:lexington, probably planet thai, okay, um, that was my wife and i's first date was there well then, yeah um. So that's, you know. Got some sentimental value, um. But you know real lexingtonians will remember there was a place in Tate's Creek Center called Pad Thai. That was like the best Thai food ever and I think they paid him. I think they wrote him a pretty good check to get him out of there when they expanded Kroger and Tate's Creek Center.
Speaker 2:And he just didn't reopen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think he just took the money and maybe went back to Thailand. I'm not sure. Terrible, but that was the best spot. But we like planet Thai, um, and we like all of it, arcanine.
Speaker 2:I love Arcanine.
Speaker 1:Um, uh, just, you know everywhere, Um, we love, um love Vietnamese food, we love sushi, Um, we love like authentic Mexican. My wife and kids they love you know, like your Americanized, like type Tex-Mex, I don't love that as much as they do.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm on, I'm on their side. Yeah, that's like that would be their choice most of the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I like it too. One of the main things is I just eat too much when I'm there.
Speaker 1:I'm like you know I can't stop eating the chips and the queso and you know that kind of thing, but we do a lot of. You know I don't know what you would even really call it Just like American, like we like Winchell's a lot, we like Suggins a lot. I said one time to somebody I don't want to go out to eat at a restaurant if they don't have cottage cheese as a side item. And not that I would always order that, but like the kind of place that would have a good indicator.
Speaker 1:I mean it's kind of like for sure. And then someone said, yeah, that's like what older people order, and I'm like well, I guess that's how I am, but we, we just kind of eat all over the place, um, and with the, with the kids.
Speaker 1:We don't do the higher end places as much, um, but uh, you know, we, we just kind of keep it casual, but we do eat out a lot as a family. Um, like I said, we're we're very busy. There's days where one of us is at this practice and the other ones at this practice and we'll meet up somewhere to eat. Um, we love like taquerias and taco trucks and and that kind of thing. So, um, that was probably our main things. You know, mexican food, thai, vietnamese love it, sushi, yeah raising them right yeah, yeah and like I said, they're good eaters.
Speaker 2:They like a little bit of everything so lucky, yeah, okay, well, thank you so much my pleasure for being a part. I mean, you were a really great podcast guest.
Speaker 1:I gotta hand it to you well, anybody that knows me well knows that I talk a lot, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just normal for me it sounds great.
Speaker 2:Thanks again yeah, and I hate and thank you for being here during your lunch rush, I mean yeah no, my Like.
Speaker 1:I said I got a good group of guys that are holding it down and when I go back they'll probably have the music cranked up and just having a good time.
Speaker 2:Good, good, good, so it wasn't too bad. No, no, no, no, no, no no.